Feeler FTL 618

[pfincham]

After a lot of messing about, I finally ditched the angle plate idea and the jacks and went back to the parallels. I measured various area of land between the saddle front plate mounting and the back of the casting and sorted out a set of parallels that gave me and end to end variation of .002" and back to front of .0025; good enough for me. Set it true and reamed it to 20mm. Fours hours of messing about and four minutes to do it.

I then set out to get the clutches off. Taking Bills advice I used a valve spring compressor. 15 quid from Halfords buys some flimsy thing that just about did it. Not like the simple G cramp type from 30 years ago. They're all stripped down and ready for cleaning. God knows if the clamp will re-compress them to get the clutches back on.

I've changed all the bearings in the casting now and find I'm two short for the front plate. They should be easy enough to source from the local bearing supplier so I'm shooting for completion by next weekend before a trip to Florida.

The saddle's now back on and having readjusted the gibs there is some wear to the bed; when I get it right for the headstock end it's tight at the tail stock. I'll leave it that way as most of the work will be done at the headstock end.